How Doth the Crocodile
by Obsidian Sam
Summary: To them, my little rendezvous would make about as much sense as having a pet crocodile. I can't pet it, it will never love me, and there is always, always the chance that it'll turn around and eat me. Slade and OC, Ace. Flamers welcome. COME AT ME, BRO.


**_Sammy's salute: _Yeah… don't stab me for this. Slade has always been my favorite villain, and I felt that he needed more love, so ta-da! Teen Titans oneshot has been immaculately conceived.**

**Because atheists totally believe in that shit…**

**Any who, I wanted to make something like this, with psychological warfare and smut, for a while. I just didn't think it'd be a Titans thing…**

**_Disclaimer:_ Gesus tap-dancing Christ! You have the bloody _word! _Now screw off and get on to the story!**

To them, my little rendezvous would make about as much sense as having a pet crocodile. I can't pet it, it will never love me, and there is always, _always_ the chance that it'll turn around and eat me.

"Slade." Robin grates out as the alarm sounds. "Titans, go!"

Not that they know about it, of course.

I watch the others disappear out the door, only knowing I'm invited when Starfire asks, "Please, Friend Ace, are you not joining us?"

Smiling, I pull on my burgundy cloak, tying back blonde curls in a ribbon and donning the bit of leather with a Harlequin smile. "Didn't know I was invited." I causally hint, tighten the straps of leather boot. Wouldn't want one to fall off and hit a citizen in the face…

_Again._

Star grabs my arms, dragging me upwards, into the air and off of the roof of the Titan's tower.

_Why am I the only female member of the team that can't fly?_ I resist groaning, wishing to be granted the miracle of my very own land vehicle.

Like the R-cycle, but with an A. The A-cycle…?

Maybe just a moped instead… or a scooter… or flight, flight would be nice…

"_RRRAHHHH!"_ The scream of rage manages to draw my attention away from my regrettable transportation dependency, and to the world outside my head.

We spot Robin, and, as always, he's engaging Slade in hand-to-hand combat. The older, armored man is obviously more experienced than our Boy Wonder, but takes the time to humor the young hero anyway.

"Take care, Ace." Starfire mutters, setting me down and going off to take at crack at Slade.

I watch them all, observing as my job requires. Slade toys with them, waiting for them to tire and pretends to be defeated.

He disappears to fast for me to be able to accurately track his location.

"Ace?" Robin demands, seething at our apparent inability to capture the masked villain. "Did you see where he went?"

Shaking my head, I sigh, straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of aura, to feel a twinge of manna. I call on the earth, pleading with it to give me some sort of sign.

As always, he knows exactly how to hide from my ability.

_So, you'll come find me this time, eh?_

"Ace!" Robin's snapping, livid and exhausted and unable to tolerate much more disappointment in one day.

"I can't feel a thing from him." I grate out, frustrated. It's one thing having to feign ignorance, but another deal entirely actually _being_ ignorant. "I think he knows how to get around my ability."

A wordless growl emits itself from Robin's red-clothed chest. "Damn it!" He spits.

"Robin, it isn't her fault." Cyborg's attempt to reason with our enraged leader falls on deaf ears, as the spiky, black-haired teen is already speeding away on his motor bike.

"Let's go home." Raven's deadpanned tone comes as a welcome disengaging force.

Nodding, the four head to the T car, leaving me to do what I do best.

Tracking.

I meander over to where Slade disappeared from, touching the dirt and wishing that the bastard wasn't quite so _clever_.

This suddenly gives voice to a question.

"Why does man kind feel the need to devolve themselves?" The question is aimed at ears I know are listening beneath their two toned mask. "Why not all become brilliant?"

"Because," The sardonic voice that is unmistakably _Slade's, _replies. "Then there wouldn't be a food chain. No one would be at the bottom to make the ones at the top feel brilliant."

I turn, promising that this time, I'll get under his guard and bring him down.

"So, why would we keep more at the bottom?" I challenge, already knowing what he'll say.

His gaze traces over my kneeling form, wary and scrutinizing. "You know why."

I stand, obliterating the mandatory distance he's so careful to keep between us. "Do I?" The gentleness of my voice has an effect on him, and I can see him stiffen from where I stands.

"What…" Slade's voice already sounds unsteady. "What kind of reaction do you seek from me?"

His breathing hitches as I touch his chest through his silvery breastplate.

With touch and compassion as my only weapons, I dive head first into a psychological war I'm not sure I can win.

He seeks to frighten me, to sway me to his cause and I seek to pull a reaction I can understand out from under his stoic depths. I try to put us on equal footing, and he destroys it in the name of making me feel small and trapped.

I move forward, leaving only a small space between us. "What would you have me do, should you sway me to your cause?"

A question for a question. Never a straight answer between us.

It almost makes me sorry I didn't go for Beast Boy when I had the chance.

He laughs, slow and deep. "Keep you, I suppose."

And then he pulls something like this.

"Keep…?" I force myself not to sound too stunned, tasking my red-brown eyes to search for answers I'll never find in that passive façade.

I can rarely predict what he'll say, what he'll _do._ He's always doing what I least expect, and it irks me to no end.

Slade's eye remains impassive, simply studying me and my reactions, but I can't help but feel his pleased smile from under that metallic helm.

_And he knows it._

"Lock you away," His hand covers mine shakily. With a forced sense of calm, it encircles my wrist. "Never let you out of my sight."

Suddenly yanking me close, surprising me as much as himself, he hisses, "You are _mine._"

Withdrawing from his harshness means withdrawing from him, and if I do that, the game will be shattered.

Neither of us can afford that.

"Yours?" I press closer, noting his ridged muscles and nervous, yellowish aura. "Who said _anything_ about me being an object to be bought and sold?"

"Not—" He falters as my arms wind around his torso. "Not an object. A precious, precious princess."

I've always used the weapon of touch sparingly, fearing that the more familiar he became with it, the less effective it would be.

"Do I _look_ like a princess to you?"

I would've drawn away to motion to myself, but.

As I've said.

Everything would come tumbling down on my head.

Instead, I tuck my head under his chin, biting back a surprised gasp when his arms come to rest around my shoulders.

The first time he hugged me it'd been a sad, painful thing for the both of us. He'd nearly squeezed me to the point of breathlessness, and I'd nearly pulled away form him in the fear that he would.

"With out the mask, maybe…" He shudders, apprehensively touching my blonde head.

I roll my eyes, muttering a light, "men," before tracing his spine with a feather-light finger.

"You'll be the end of me!" He growls, suddenly pulling away.

Though dazed by his sudden movement, coherent thought prevails. _I can't destroy this… it'll ruin him… ruin everything._

"I'm not trying to end you, Slade…" With the kind of tenderness I only possess when comforting my teammates, I follow after him. One step back matched with one step forward, and he's eventually back in my grasp.

"No!" Slade shoves me back, snarling in an almost unintelligible manor. "You're trying to get me! Get under my guard and end me!"

My heart sinks into my stomach, the earth, formerly solid and dependable, giving way beneath my feet. _He knows…_

"You think…" I start slowly, gaining more confidence as I go on. "You think I did this for my team? They'd shun me along with you! FYI, Slade: it's like having a pet reptile. I can't cuddle you, I can't tame you." I laugh bitterly. "I can't trust you not to turn around and eat me! I mean, why wouldn't you?"

"Because," I can sense a grin from under his mask. "This is _exhilarating. _Why end a game like this? Why fix something that isn't broken?"

"'How doth the crocodile,

Improve his shining tail.'" I quote, because now it's my turn to back away, my turn to be prey.

"Then _why?"_ He's desperate now, grabbing my forearms and compelling me to look at him by the sheer force of his will alone.

"I want," My voice takes on the thick quality that only comes with tears. "To understand. Something. Anything."

His eye narrows, flickering from rust-colored iris to rust-colored iris.

And then, it all goes black.

"_You will be mine."_

When I awake, my face feels heavy. _My mask… is still on… Why would I sleep with…?_

"Good morning, princess."

Then my blood freezes in my veins.

"Or, afternoon. Evening, really."

I sit bolt up right, surprised to find myself unbound and completely in tacked.

"Good evening…" I whisper, searching for my communicator.

It's still on my belt. A show of good faith, or…?

"It won't work." Slade steps into the light, moving ever closer to my side.

_Thought not._

"You asked me why…" I recall, not feeling my brightest after waking up from my ability's blow-back. "Can I ask you?"

He sits on the edge of the bed, from what I can gather, _his_ bed, taking care not to make contact with me.

"Proceed." He motions with his hand, a muted form of a flourish I'd come to expect from him.

Dropping the proverbial bombshell, I say something I shouldn't:

"What do you want from me?"

"Nothing." He says, casually picking at blankets with leather-gloved fingers.

On my feet and at the bedroom door, I'm not surprised to find it locked. "I see."

I pull a pin out of my hair, starting when it's pulled from my grasp. Fingers roughly encircle my wrists, a body pressing into mine and slamming me into a solid oak door.

Breath fans across my ear, and I realize in a startling second that _Slade's not wearing his mask._

"_Everything."_ It comes out in a pained hiss, and he bites my neck, turning my body and constraining it to the door frame. "I want _everything_ from you."

My sharp inhalation and cry of pain do not go ignored. He withdraws, if only slightly, and prizes my mouth open with his tongue and teeth.

Painful and rough, he does his best to make this perversion of affection as impersonal as possible.

Innocent and afraid, I unknowingly counteract his hostile intent.

A bone deep shudder runs through out his being, releasing my wrists and pressing his face into my neck, he leaves me to do as I please. Whether it be to see his face, to push him away, or to embrace him, the choice is entirely mine.

Trembling fingers untie my mask, further disobeying their owner's command and pulling the ribbon out of my hair and letting it fall, mingling with the inky black strands of my would-be enemy.

"Now we're even." I whisper, trying not to think about the coarse fabric on his face that is, undoubtedly, an eye patch. I squeeze my eyes shut as his head lifts from my collar bone, staring.

"Open them." Is his quiet demand. "Open them and look at me."

I shake my head, hiding behind a curtain of strawberry blonde ringlets.

"_Look at me!"_

I flinch, cracking my eyes open to see a hansom, scarred face. Black hair hangs over an eye patch, and one steal gray orb intently drinks in my face. Gloveless hands are brought up to gently caress.

"You're freezing."

It's not a question. He's far too cold, and his touch raises goose bumps where ever it falls.

"I want you…" He murmurs. "Your happiness… Your attention… Your heat…"

His lips graze over mine, affirming my greatest fear.

He's gotten used to me.

"You're touch." He smiles, devilish and beautiful. "I want to steal it from you, make it mine and assure that no one else can _ever_ have it."

I'm shaking like a leaf, terrified and energized all at once.

"But if I just took it," He leans forward licking my neck, sucking on my pulse. "You wouldn't survive it… and I'd very much like to have you around later."

A whimper leaves my throat unbidden. I'd known we were playing for keeps, but…

"The only way for both of us to get what we want, and for you to survive it..."

_Don't. Don't make me run…_

"Is if I'm inside of you."

A tear worms it's down my cheek, and he notices. "I'll make sure you enjoy it."

It's a promise.

I'm not sure it's worth keeping.

"No one else will be able to take this from you. It will be mine."

Well, _that's_ reassuring…

"I'll never…" He pulls my earlobe in between his teeth, nipping lightly. "_Ever_ let anyone else to it to you."

Shuddering, I nod. Once.

It's dubious, at best. And as far as consent goes, the ground work isn't even there.

Nervous hands bare flesh neither party dreamed of baring, and all too soon, I lose myself to his chilled touch.

"Like this?" He whispers, hands at my chest, on my back, my neck, my legs.

"Yeah…" I shudder. For someone who hates contact like him, he knows what he's doing.

My hand skims over the skin and scar tissue of his torso, touching lightly and unsurely.

"This?" I ask, hesitant.

He leaves no room for debate, rolling over me and cutting off any cry for protest with his mouth and hands _inside_.

Just where he wants to be.

I've no idea what I said, but all to soon, he's positioning himself in between my legs with me on my back.

I panic, "I didn't want this."

Gasping, he shudders as my squirming brushes against him _just so. _"Means you do now."

Snarky comments aside, he maneuvers me over him, hands at my hips, guiding me down, down, _down._

And it hurts, bringing a cry to my lips.

And he gasps, holding me in place.

And

Neither

Of

Us

Move.

The stillness and silence are crippling. I've never wanted to pull away so badly, and he's never tried so hard to convince me with his gaze that he didn't mean to cause harm.

I adjust after a moment, praying to whatever god may exist that I've just dealt with the worst of it.

As it turns out, I have.

Our bodies move together, franticly trying to bring the other as much pleasure as possible.

It's over far too soon, an admittedly adorable mewl of pleasure being the simple point at which my body reaches its end, triggering his own release like dominoes getting knocked over.

I realize, at some point while we recover from our climaxes, that there are too many questions left to answer.

"Tell me," I venture, stroking his hair. "Why will this work."

"To spite us both." The smile I've always felt, but never seen until now, curls cattily on his lips. "What now?"

It's my turn to grin. "Enjoy the irony."

'_How cheerfully he seems to grin,_

_How neatly spreads its claws._

_And welcomes the little fishes in,_

_With gently smiling jaws.'_

_**REVIEW!**_


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